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About the Artist
John Hastings (Jack) Mason grew up in Minnesota and New Jersey, and is a
graduate of Brown University (B.A., Semiotics) and Columbia University's
Graduate School of Journalism. Along his varied way, Jack has been a pole
vaulter, an actor, a screenwriter, a journalist, a Web producer, a keyboard
player and is currently a builder of virtual worlds and online social networks
at IBM.
Mason began reporting on the emergence of nanotechnology in 2000.
The journalistic work inspired him to begin creating works of visual art based
on scientific images of structures, materials and devices fabricated at the
scale of atoms and molecules, the so-called "nanoscale."
About the Art
Nanotechno: The
Art of the Invisibly Small
In music, techno is a style that often blends and weaves together
musical, rhythmic and sonic layers. In
science today, nanotechnology seeks to control and manipulate how matter mixes
at the ultimate level of nature’s building blocks -- atoms and molecules.
The tools that have enabled us to “see” structures as small as individual
atoms and molecules are remarkable: because the atomic scale is much smaller
than the wavelengths of all light, we are only able to perceive, detect and
represent molecular reality indirectly, i.e. by sensing the electronic,
magnetic or other minute forces of nanoscale objects and then translating that
information into visual expression.
Technically, images of all things atomic are inherently not
photographic; they are digital.
Each signed giclee represents my own interpretations of these
digital images, transformed by appreciation for the exotic and subtle beauty of
the scientific images. My technique is similar to the composition of techno
music, in that I combine and composite multiple molecular images, melding and
pushing and transfiguring these newly created images until they reveal new
characteristics, patterns or motifs. The
process reflects the best experiments being conducted by nanotech researchers
today.
My first foray into visual art, this project sometimes seems to be
a collaboration with the very atoms, molecules and nanoscopic ghosts that I’ve
encountered in my source material. These fundamental components of physical
reality are, after all, effectively immortal: all atoms have existed since the
dawn of time, and are continually being recycled and re-used. In some ineffable
way, I feel they are seeking to express themselves, and I am merely their
conduit.
My hope is that this work will feed cultural awareness of this
tantalizing new science, and is a personal expression of wonder and mystery
about the infinitesimally small world that humans are seeking to master. It is an attempt to build a visual vocabulary
for a landscape of staggering smallness, and an invitation to investigate new
vistas of the fabric of matter never before possible.
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